ok ..so here's the rub

OK so this is a free- for- all throw you're ideas into the hat please ..

Betsy is INTERMITTENTLY either not starting or dying mid drive ..???
I can turn the ignition key and sometimes no dash lights appear at all ...so she doesn't fire ...then i can get the ECU light/coil light on ...turn and she will fire ...then sometimes she'll run fine for days until she either dies mid flow ( but usually starts again and drives fine ) or I'm back to non' start.
Having now paid out twice for two different garages to do the same fault diagnosis , Please can I ask for anybody else who may have had this trouble , to throw a few ideas my way.
She's had ..twice in 4 months
fuel pump relay
ignition relay
new earth lead from the ECU to the battery

Chap at the garage is saying either ECU is faulty or the in tank fuel pump?
Trouble is ..what do you do if there's no definitive answer ..?
ECU is expensive to change ...but if it has to be done then so be it ..
Fuel pump is a dog to change ...preferred method , cutting a hole in the floor of the butt for easy access
Anybody with any ideas ...running out of money and tissues here ..:Cry:

Have checked your battery and alternator? When my RRC had a funky battery, it would just cut out and stop on the highway. After I turned the ignition off and heard the relay (or whatever it was) click under the passenger seat, it would start right up. A new battery fixed it.

I have experienced similar problems when turning the key to start nothing turn again it starts on another occasion it would take several attempts of turning the key with nothing happening before any life but if the starter motor did work the engine would always start.

Only on one occasion did the engine stop whilst in use, I tried to start it turned the key nothing. I happened to be blocking other traffic so I rolled it backwards out of the way to take a look.
Checked the usual battery, earth, fuse, relay crawled underneath to the starter motor and saw one of the wires off. It was a bayonet fitting so pushed it back on it fired up first time.

The area around the connections on the started motor was very cruddy on returning home I cleaned the area made sure all the connections on the started motor were clean and applied some Vaseline I have not had a reoccurrence of the dead when turning the key or cutting out since.

Hope this helps

Tim4x4 said:

I have experienced similar problems when turning the key to start nothing turn again it starts on another occasion it would take several attempts of turning the key with nothing happening before any life but if the starter motor did work the engine would always start.

Only on one occasion did the engine stop whilst in use, I tried to start it turned the key nothing. I happened to be blocking other traffic so I rolled it backwards out of the way to take a look.
Checked the usual battery, earth, fuse, relay crawled underneath to the starter motor and saw one of the wires off. It was a bayonet fitting so pushed it back on it fired up first time.

The area around the connections on the started motor was very cruddy on returning home I cleaned the area made sure all the connections on the started motor were clean and applied some Vaseline I have not had a reoccurrence of the dead when turning the key or cutting out since.

Hope this helps

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Thanks Tim ....any ideas large or small are very welcome ...I will definitely look at those connections .

My 90 was exactly the same. Turned out to be the block on the back of the ignition switch it had worked itself loose cable tied mine till I bought another no problem since

If you want a 2nd opinion, Ian really, really knows TD5's.

Whitehair Engineering

Rusty Spanner said:

My 90 was exactly the same. Turned out to be the block on the back of the ignition switch it had worked itself loose cable tied mine till I bought another no problem since

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Thanks Rusty ...I've a feeling it could be something like this ...I'm just not convinced that the ECU is duff as surely it wouldn't work all of the time , whereas she seems fine most of the time . Also I can hear the fuel pump kicking in when I turn on the ignition , whilst waiting for the ECU/coil lights to go out.

Trewey said:

If you want a 2nd opinion, Ian really, really knows TD5's.

Whitehair Engineering

Click to expand...

Thanks for this Trewey , could be just what we need , someone with a real knowledge of TD5 , that isn't a main dealer , but possibly the next best thing.

You said there is no dash lights when you try to restart the engine, in that case check your battery connections.

TD5s are prone to wiring loom faults. Sometime in the 2000s Land Rover must have bought a load of wire that was prone to insulation cracking and flaking and the copper going very brittle. Looking over all the TD5 threads on all the Land Rover discussion boards (yes, there are others) quite a few people have had frustrating electrical faults that are intermittent and disabling. I have had this too. It's intermittent, so it hides whenever there's a mechanic around and because it's in the wires rather than the components the garage can't find it with their diagnostic kit. Maybe something is intermittently shorting or breaking circuit between the ECU ignition switch, engine and accelerator pedal. Without experience of your vehicle I can't be more specific than that.

Alternatively, I've had symptoms similar to yours with an oil in injector loom problem (cutting out, failure to restart), with a loose connection on the starter motor (starter won't turn), and with some sort of fuel starvation problem which was cured with new fuel pump, fuel pump relay and filter (cutting out and failure to restart).

Are relays under seat ok, good contacts and clicking? Also a blue block of contacts and splices that can corrode
Check em to cause it can get damp in there, an additional earth ran in is a good thing

Ignition switch maybe?

Hi Muds spoke to garages this morning and they said about the brittle wires being the problem most of the time when it's something daft.. They did say additional earths are good but not essential check the wires visually and you may see the insulation has gone off colour and thinned out

Martyn110 said:

Hi Muds spoke to garages this morning and they said about the brittle wires being the problem most of the time when it's something daft.. They did say additional earths are good but not essential check the wires visually and you may see the insulation has gone off colour and thinned out

Click to expand...

Pretty much my experience too. Good to hear about a garage being straight about it. Quite often they seem to tell people that it needs a new fuel pump, accelerator potentiometer or even a new ECU, all of which gets swapped and things aren't much better.